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Big Paper Session, Part 3: PDEL

The third thing that showed up during our big paper session was a sort of surprising source of tears for me. It's the practical details of everyday life, or PDEL for short. (For some reason I get a kick out of the acronym.) PDEL has been making me cry lately.

Like the other two topics, writing and love, I feel ashamed of the emotional impact PDEL has on me. With writing, I'm ashamed that I need a feeling of collaboration and interest in my writing from others who I respect. I feel like if I were somehow better, nobler, more authentic or responsible or disciplined, the lack of structure or deadlines wouldn't matter, and I would send forth perfect personal essays and wonderful articles and the great american novel fully formed on an ambitious timeline of my own. And my failure to do so means I'm somehow inept. Ick. With love, I am not ashamed of my longing, but I do feel a sense of shame at continuing to be alone when I don't want to be. Is everyone kind of secretly wondering what's wrong with me, as I show up to yet another wedding reception by myself? Or (worse) do they know, and they just don't want to tell me?

So too with PDEL. My self-image is as someone who's reasonably capable and independent. And I'm also not that focused or concerned about the material world, preferring to live in my own head and to think about people and relationships and plans and ideas, not stuff. But the fact is I live in a small house that's almost 100 years old, on a big lot. I drive a persnickety, high-maintenance, impractical car with 95,000 miles. I am cobbling together a living, barely, on a part-time salary and whatever I can make from writing or teaching private sailing lessons, tax refunds and windfalls, and until I start getting a lot more writing assignments it's not enough for the basic month-to-month expenses, let alone big repairs. I don't have a knack or a particular interest in home improvement or maintenance; I don't have ingenuity or bravery or pluck when it comes to stuff. And I don't have a partner or anyone else who cares about these things -- whether the garbage disposal gets fixed or the canoe gets moved or the termites or whatever they are eat away at the top of the garage door. None of the individual things is necessarily hard or expensive to fix, but the endless list of them somehow overwhelms me.

So what happens is I try to ignore things that I don't know how to fix or do, out of fear that it will cost too much or require too much help. And because I don't want to face the fact that I'm poor and worried. And that I'm alone. And that I'm bad at asking for help. But I only pretend to ignore them. Inside, I notice and I fret, and the build-up of little things drains me. And I want help tackling them, and not having it reminds me of how much I want a partner. Not because I want a workhorse, a gardener and carpenter, riding in on a white horse to save the day. I want a partner for bigger, more emotional reasons. I don't want to be rescued. But just because having someone else to hold the other end of the tape measure gives me the confidence to at least try some of these things. And until I tackle them the details taunt me, they remind me that I'm lonely and poor and, at least in this realm, kind of helpless.

Last week I tackled a bunch of these things. The shower drain: done. The garage door opener -- sort of fixed (although there's still a mysterious problem with it opening at random.) The yard -- tackled and trimmed, with lots more to do but at least some sense that it's manageable. My car: clean. The knives -- sharp, at last!!!! The toilet leak, the garbage disposal, the tiles coming down in the shower, the critter living in the eaves of the roof, the vines invading the porch, the check engine light: all these things are still ahead. But I recognize how much relief I get from tackling them. And I realized that friends can help me get unstuck.

One answer for me might be to sell the house and buy a condo somewhere in town. Maybe a place without a big yard, with less space and newer construction, makes sense for how my life is right now. I've been thinking about it. I'm not sure I'm ready to draw that conclusion, yet. I love where I live. I love the water all around, and the gathering space is great for parties. It's a little house, a shabby place in a working-class neighborhood, but I have a spacious little corner lot and I love the rooms and I like knowing my neighbors and having my best friends just around the corner. The yard is amazingly fertile and someday, when my mom's genes kick in I will want to do a flowerbed and it will grow wonderfully. I love the walk up the street and across to the hospital, with it's shady parklike grounds and the path down to the ocean where I sit on the rocky beach or go for a swim at night. I'm proud of being a homeowner -- it feels like one of the financially responsible things I've done, and although making the mortgage payment is a stressor, it is immensely satisfying to feel like I'm paying for something that I'll have my whole life. So it's premature to conclude that the house isn't right for me.

But I'm off balance, and I need to acknowledge the reality that my stuff needs my attention. And that I need to get help, and budget both time and money to tackling the things that break or crumble or grow where they shouldn't. I hate that stuff, but that doesn't mean I can avoid or ignore it. And tackling it is not as bad as worrying about it in the back of my head and pretending to be carefree. I don't know the solution, yet, but I feel like facing the fact that my material surroundings matter to me and require a regular dose of attentive care is a beginning.

Comments

From everything that you have written, I doubt that selling the house and moving to a condo is the answer. Living in a building with others has its own headaches, plus things still break and need tending to. Not that I have any suggestions about resolving the underlying issues that you wrote about; I just think that PDEL is an amplifier not a root cause. Don't bother with the amplifier. As a sensitive person you will still hear see and feel the emotional noise that is so distratcting.

Rebyonka, I remember you posting about buying that car. How in the name of the great green greasy Limpopo did you get 95k miles on it that quickly? (Or did I miss the post where you traded it in and bought used?)

That said, 80% of the time the "check engine" light comes on automatically after a given number of miles - on my Honda, it used to be 7,500, but now that I'm past 100k it doesn't seem to come on at all. Taking it in for "regular maintenance" will get the light turned off, if it's in your budget; if it's not, change the oil and put a square of black tape over the light, like so many other people I've seen. (In my Honda, again, there's a little socket next to the light, and if I push my key in the light resets.)

I love your PDEL acronym. As a single woman living by myself all those little details sometimes get me down, too - and I'm a mechanical engineer for heaven's sake! Don't be afraid to reach out to others for help - sometimes even getting advice from someone over the phone helps get me unstuck.

You know, if it *is* a VW, the check engine light most definitely does not come on automatically - it comes on for a reason. That reason could be huge, or it could be minor, but you won't know until you take it to a VW service guy who can read your computer. That part takes 30 seconds. Then you can decide whether or not you are up to dealing with it. I disagree with posters who tell you to ignore it.

The good news is that the check engine light simply lit up, not flashing, means that you are not in imminent danger because of it (if it does start flashing, please don't ignore for even a day). (This does not, however, mean that whatever it is is not taking years and miles off the engine.) The bad news is, of course, that these lights do tend to be expensive. If this is your first check engine light in a VW at 90K you are already beating the odds...

Go see your mechanic. Wouldn't you rather know what you are up agains than cringe everytime you turn on the engine and it does not go away, even though you keep hoping it will?

I feel you on this one, and the first commenter is right--the PDEL issues aren't the root cause. It really goes back to the love and loneliness issues. That doesn't go away if you move to a condo.

I think this issue is quite common among single women beyond their mid-20s--it hits when most of our friends are married and starting to be parents, we've moved away from the close networks of friends we developed in school, and we're less likely to have roommates. Plus, we're at an age where we start to feel silly calling our dads for every light that comes on in the car and every leak in the bathroom. The social structures that supported us through day to day life up to now--our families and friends--aren't there the same way they used to be. For many people, that function is filled by a spouse or partner. But for those of us who remain single, it feels very isolating.

Anyway, I don't have any advice. I'm going through it too--trying to figure out how to be an independent person who is generally happy with her life, but still longs for a partner to share the work and the decisions of life with. Just letting you know that your PDEL issues are not a sign you're incompetent at life! You're not alone in sometimes feeling overwhelmed--I was near tears not too long ago trying to make decisions about car repairs.

This series of posts really hit home with me. I've felt all those things, very strongly.

I have a suggestion, because I remember being overwhelmed and feeling helpless about it and not knowing where to start. The worst that ever got was when I was out of work for a long time and got desperately poor. I didn't mind living poor, because my life is rich, but it makes everything so much harder if you aren't handy. You can't justify spending more money if you could spend your time instead, but you don't know how to fix your car or house yourself.

So I finally got a job, and I can afford to hire people to fix stuff. I sort of feel like I am wimping out by not learning how, but I mostly feel like I am fixing it. I'm fixing it with my money, which I earned. It creates a whole new breathing space.

Maybe, instead of getting stuck on chores which are disproportionately daunting, you might go in a direction that you already know how to manage? Like earning more money?